Setting up the project

Every API in this series starts from the same nine lines of code. Before you touch a route or a database, get that baseline running so you know any errors later come from your own code, not a broken setup.

What you need installed

You'll need Node.js 18 or newer and a terminal. Check your version:

node -v

If that prints something below v18, install a current version before continuing — a few features later in this series rely on newer built-ins.

Initialize the project

Create a folder, initialize npm, and install Express:

mkdir rest-api-tutorial && cd rest-api-tutorial
npm init -y
npm install express

Your first server

Create server.js with the smallest server that can respond to a request:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('Server running on http://localhost:3000');
});

Run it with node server.js. Nothing will respond yet — there are no routes — but if the process starts without errors, your setup is correct.

In the next part, you'll add your first route and get an actual response back from the browser.